


Roots (Run Deep Into the Hollow)

by BairnSidhe, ValkyriePhoenix



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Original Trilogy
Genre: (You are all trashfires who wouldn't survive without him), AU, Cultures, Fuck You A Little Louder, Gen, Late night conversations spiraled out of control, Multi-cultural, Music, Musicians, R2-D2 Also Has Opinions, Rebellion comes in many forms, Tatooine Slave Culture (Star Wars), What-If, With songs, color symbolism, the authors have Opinions
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-15
Updated: 2021-02-26
Packaged: 2021-03-12 21:07:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 11,050
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28766796
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BairnSidhe/pseuds/BairnSidhe, https://archiveofourown.org/users/ValkyriePhoenix/pseuds/ValkyriePhoenix
Summary: Bail Organa makes slightly different choices.Everything changes.Nothing changes.
Relationships: Leia Organa & Luke Skywalker, Pooja Naberrie & Leia Organa
Comments: 86
Kudos: 92





	1. Those who wish to sing always find a song - Swedish Proverb

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Flowers for the Emperor](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11108382) by [Fialleril](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fialleril/pseuds/Fialleril). 



> Work title is from an Roots by In This Moment primarily about "I bite down a little harder, my blade's a little sharper...I strike back a little harder, Fuck you a little louder, My roots, my roots run deep into the hollow, I'm stronger than I ever knew" (because you're an asshole, so...thanks I guess? can you say the same?)
> 
> We'd been reading Double Agent Vader, Fialleril's other work with Tatooine Slave culture, and Blue_Sunshine's Desert Storm Series for a few months (it takes weeks to get through all of Desert Storm when you have work to go to.) and late night facebook messages kinda spiraled out of control, and now we have seven chapters and no end in sight.
> 
> Updates, as always when Valky is involved, will depend entirely on how fast things decide to be written. Also on a d20 roll because we now have a few too many AUs to write solely on scheduled basis or when the muse strikes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> While we usually include translations, many non-English words should be reasonably well known or at least have context around them. As such, translations will be limited to non-canon or obscure canon words and phrases.
> 
> As always, we reserve the right to put headcanon over canon.
> 
> Aim to Misbehave,  
> Bairn.
> 
> PS: I know it's the wrong fandom, it still applies. Sic Semper Tyrannis.

Bail Organa winced as he stepped from the ship he’d borrowed into the harsh light of two suns. He was grateful, for the moment, for his dark rough-spun woolen cloak and the scarf that covered his face, the two working together to kill most of the glare, though he was quite sure he’d be hating their existence quite soon. Cool, they were not. No matter, he fully planned to burn them the instant he got home anyway. He could hate them for a few hours without consequence.

Sighing under his breath, he put everything he learned from three years of open war and five years of cold war spy games to use, following the crowd he needed while looking like he knew exactly where he was going.This was not the time to look like he was lost. And it was _never_ the time for a Senator to be found wandering the streets of Mos Espa, or any other Hutt-owned city for that matter.

Finally, he found the place he was looking for. Thugs of various species and stripes populated an open-air cafe, junk shops on every corner, and not a single well-off person in sight. Now he just needed to find the person...

He stopped in front of a fruit-seller and perused her wares. She was...positively ancient, and hardworn, but sharp.

"Can I help you find sommat, sir?"

"Perhaps," he answered as he bent to inspect the fruit more carefully, then quieter, "I'm looking for a grandmother."

That… certainly got a response, her eyes went sharp and narrow. "Who's asking and why do you want to know?"

 _If you ever have need,_ Anakin said from his memories of...long ago, _ask for a grandmother. Then. Then tell the truth, and only the truth. You'll get what you need. Whether it's what you want… well._

The truth, then. 

"A father whose daughter needs one."

"Come inside."

***

"Tell me." A demand, not a request. Bail had never felt the Force, and his gut instincts were mostly reserved for politics and espionage, though, in his experience, the two were mostly the same thing. He felt _this_ , however, a simple knowing that he could and should speak the _whole_ truth, not just _only_ the truth.

He sighed and slipped the scarf from his face.

"My daughter is adopted. Her parents both died the day she was born. The day the Empire rose. I can never tell her who they were, never tell her of my dear friends or their names. They were… prominent in the Republic. It will never be safe for her to know of her family. I cannot give her her lineage, their names, their stories. But I would have her know their _people_ , the cultures they came from. It is the only thing of _theirs_ I can give her."

"And one of them came from here?"

"Her father once told me that if I had true need while out beyond the Republic's reach, to find a place like this one and ask for a grandmother. To tell the truth and I would get what I needed, though it may not be what I wanted."

Jira placed a cup in his hand, crude earthenware, with water and fruit in it, a fortune, he was sure.

"Who was he?" She asked, firmly but kindly.

He smiled sadly, "A man who could never keep his feet on the ground for long. Who was once a boy who won a podrace near here. I cannot tell you his name. Nor that of his wife, who was born of a world of water but spoke and lived with fire in her veins."

He wasn't sure what reaction he expected, though he certainly expected one. _Grief_ was not it. "You knew him." Not a question, but she answered it anyway.

"I knew the boy who won the podrace, I never knew the man, though I am not surprised he couldn't keep his feet on the ground. Even as a child he couldn't quite manage that trick. Bring your daughter. I will teach her what she needs to know."

***

Leia was five standard years old when she traveled to Tatooine for the first time. Her initial impression of it was the overwhelming brown-ness of it all, so very different than her home. Alderaan was a planet of green and blue and white -- always white, white stone, white-topped mountains, white herd-beasts and white clouds. Her mother’s garden had a section for visitors with many colored flowers, but the part Leia liked best was the traditional section with the all-white native flowers that bloomed in order, the fragrance telling the time of day.

Tatooine was brown and yellow. She saw some white in the spaceport they landed in, on buildings and the troopers who kept watch. She saw a few bits of red in fabrics and on speeders as they worked their way through the market, and bits of something between red and yellow. She asked her father about it, and he called it orange.

She didn’t see any green or blue or purple until they ducked through a door made out of a blanket woven with star-charts in yellow-on-brown. The people there looked the same as the people in the market, but they had yellow-white scarves with bits of color hiding in them. Her father introduced her to her Grandmother. Not her actual grandmother, her parents were both Alderaanian, but she was to learn about Tatooine and Grandmothers were the teachers here.

“I am Jira,” the Grandmother said. “Who are you, that I will teach for one turning of all three moons?”

“I am Leia,” Leia said. Jira smiled at her, showing missing teeth.

“A good name, a strong name.” 

Leia wrinkled her nose but didn’t tell the Grandmother she was wrong. It just meant ‘beloved’ and was actually very plain. She had three other Leias in her class back home.

“Come sit, and I will tell you of Leia, the Mighty Dragon of the wastes.” Leia gasped at _her_ name being the same as a _dragon_ and settled in. “I tell you this story to save your life. For there is a mighty krayt dragon in the deepest parts of the desert, and no chain has yet been made which can bind her, and her name is Leia.”

***

Leia was six standard years old when she traveled to Naboo for the first time. If Tatooine had seemed strange for it was all dry sand and stone, Naboo was strange for it was all flat plains and lakes. There were no mountains on the planet, and for someone who had always lived running up and down because all of Alderaan was up and down, the flat open felt strange and frightening. She did not hide her face in her Mother’s dress, though, for she was Leia. Leia who shared a name with the Mighty One, Leia who knew the secret stories of Ekkreth and Grandmother Anooba and Ar-Amu. Leia who worked with small clever hands beside Eiritaé, who could calculate the value of her labor to the smallest credit, Leia who helped write the red debts in the ledger against the Depur and his kind. She could be brave and fierce and strong.

“Leia, this is Lady Amita,” her mother said. “She will be teaching you important skills.”

“Oh, Lady Breha, you are too kind,” Lady Amita protested, flicking open a fan to hide her elegantly painted lips as they curled into a smile. “I am a humble entertainer, and teacher of such. I teach only the gentle arts; flower arranging, poetry, ceremonial dress and makeup, calligraphy, and etiquette.”

Leia learned under Lady Amita and the other Ladies who worked in the same palace. It wasn’t actually a palace with a royal living there, it was a People’s Palace, where people could come have nice things and relax. It was beautiful, and gentle, and very different from Alderaan or Tatooine. It was soft, and the softness grated at Leia.

“Why do you think I teach you this?” Lady Amita asked one day as they walked in the garden, gathering flowers.

“Because it is important,” Leia repeated. She’d been told this many times. She still couldn’t see it. “Because one day I will use it.”

“I teach you this so **_you_** may _save lives,”_ Lady Amita said sternly, although her voice never changed, something in her words made Leia think of Jira and stories to save your life. “Name the flowers in my bouquet.”

“Pirené blossoms, yellow malla, yellow aenoo, and purple canthaé,” Leia listed.

“And what are their meanings?”

“Truth, the one you seek is before you, safety lies in secrecy and….”

“And defiance of power,” Lady Amita added, touching the flower petals with a fingertip. “I need some batha valerian and a single spike of bursa breeches.”

“The orange valerian leaves will clash terribly with a bouquet of yellow and purple,” Leia noted.

“I still will include them,” Lady Amita said. “What does batha valerian mean?”

“I await a reply,” Leia answered.

“No, that’s standard valerian,” Lady Amita corrected gently. _“Batha_ valerian, with its distinctive red-orange foliage, means ‘you must be ready’.”

Suddenly the message clicked with Leia. It wasn’t a love bouquet, helping some lovers keep their secret. It was a warning, like the jumping rhymes Mother would have her sing, very specific rhymes, counting in specific ways, sometimes skipping numbers. It was secret work, spy work, _Ekkreth_ work.

“What does a single spike of bursa breeches mean?” Leia asked.

“It has two meanings,” Lady Amita said with a smile. “It means the Gentle Arts. It also means artifice or deception. I think next we will review the Romantic Poets. They frequently mention flowers, and you can practice deciphering the flower language.”

***

When Leia went back to Tatooine, she was seven. She braided her hair up in one of the styles Lady Amita had taught her, the pattern that labeled her a messenger. She had embroidered canthaé and aenoo on opposite sides of her double-sided scarf, so she could change her look quickly, one black with purple for night and defiance, one white and yellow for strength and secrecy. She spoke with the faintest of accents on her Amatakka, and Eiritaé handed her a bit of a condenser to work on while Jira told stories.

Jira told stories of Ekkreth the Trickster, Ekkreth who could not be chained, Ekkreth the slave who makes free.

“Ek masa nu Lukka Ekkreth ka,” said a boy working beside her on a different condenser part.

“Ek masa nu Leia Organa ku,” she replied. 

He smiled and she saw he was missing a tooth too, the canine on the opposite side of where she had knocked her own out to get away from the awful itching. It had bled terribly, but it was better done and over, in Leia’s opinion.

Late that night she spoke with Eiritaé over dinner.

“Last year, I was not here,” she said. Eiritaé only nodded. “I was on a world with… so much water it seems impossible. But the people there were the same as here.”

“This makes sense,” Eiritaé said slowly. “Depur is not _only_ on Tatooine. Depur is an evil baked into the galaxy like salt is baked into the white wastes. As it was explained to me, any who face Depur with freedom in their hearts are kin to the Amavikka.”

“Am I kin to the Amavikka?” Leia asked, her eyes already struggling to stay open after a long day of travel and work and learning. Eiritaé tucked her into the sleeping ledge with a blanket and her scarf folded to make a pillow.

“My dearest Leia,” Eiritaé chuckled. “You are more Amavikka than I am.”

***

When Leia was eight, she did not go to Naboo.

In the middle of the night she woke from a dream and rushed to Eiritaé’s room in the lower floors of the Palace. She crawled into the woman’s lap as Eiritaé cried silently over the news broadcast on her hand screen.

The People’s Palace Leia had learned at, was on fire.

The scroll at the bottom informed her that a dangerous Force-terrorist had been caught using the Palace as a refuge. Ordinarily, the Palace was left alone by patrols, due to the long custom that sanctuary was absolute within palace walls. However, in the necessary pursuit of a dangerous person, the Palace had become a battleground. The scroll switched to pundit questions, asking if the sanctuary rule should be abolished to provide better law enforcement, and Leia looked back to the video.

One man stood against a dozen white-armored troopers. He was clearly battered, injured, and exhausted, but he held his head high and proud, and his weapon left a smear of light that made Leia think of purple canthaé, defiant to the end.

Father came in then, asking if Eiritaé had seen the news. He looked at Leia, and took the hand screen from Eiritaé gently, before wrapping both of them in a hug.

In the morning it was decided her yearly trip would be to the Southern Mountain University, to spend time with Breha’s mother, a history professor.

Leia did not learn much history.

Instead she filled page after page with drawings. Flowers and dragons, dresses and womp rats. She was always reaching for an idea in her drawings, a picture she could see but couldn’t replicate. After a third sketchbook hit the wall, Grandmother Antilles handed her a different book. It had pale lines printed on the pages, like the training papers for calligraphy, and it had a thick strap that locked shut over the cover. 

“Perhaps what you want to say cannot be said in pictures or flowers,” she said. “Not all languages can say the same things. The Mon Cala have no word for desert, after all.”

Leia thought about that, and stared at the book, the book that locked. She thought, and she slept, and when she slept she dreamed, and when she woke from the dream she wrote.

I ~~tell you this story~~ I write this story to save ~~your~~ ~~lives~~ _my_ life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translations:  
> Depur: Amatakka for Master, applies to all Slave Masters and those who act like them.  
> Gentle Arts: the subtle arts of making the universe a more beautiful and defiant place.  
> Bursa Breeches: Acanthus spinosus, common name Bear Breeches. Bursa are the Naboo creatures that fill the Bear eco-niche.  
> Ekkreth: in Amavikka culture, the Trickster, also called "the slave who makes free", a central figure to legends of spying, sneaking, and rebellion.  
> Amatakka: the language of the Amavikka.  
> Amavikka: the slave culture of Tatooine.  
> Mon Cala: a planet and the people thereof that is greater than 90% oceans by surface area.
> 
> Notes:  
> Jira was an almost-old woman when Ani was 8. 20 years later ish, and all of them hard. Hence she seems ancient.
> 
> Different cultures have different concepts of what makes a color a distinct color deserving of its own name. This ranges from "dark/light" to the Irish Color Ohgam with 20+ colors. Leia at 5 knows the Alderaanian colors, which do not include orange (instead sorting into 'yellowy red' and 'reddish yellow'). She's learning the colors in Basic, including the colors accepted AS colors in Imperial culture, which Does include orange.
> 
> Blue and green are water/plant colors, symbolically potent as signs of life and joy and thus hidden from the Depur. Purple is just straight up rare, but where bits of purple may be found, they too are hidden because flaunting that would result in accusations of theft.
> 
> Beloved can also be a strong good meaning, though Leia doesn't have the context for that yet. What a culture considers beloved varies wildly. English would name a sweet-polite-bland girl beloved. Mandalorians would belove a loud, brash, kind girl with the fight in her veins. The beloveds of Tatooine are Ar-Amu, The Trickster, and the Dragon.
> 
> (Personal headcanon exploded, sorrynotsorry) Naboo has a cultural role similar to the tradition of Geisha, an entertainer who provides art and beauty to patrons in exchange for money. These performers are not sex workers (different job entirely and moonlighting is frowned on since it undercuts the sex worker unions) but instead stimulate the non-sexual senses, and sometimes provide very basic Emotional First Aid. 
> 
> The idea of the People's Palace is that it is a Palace that anyone in Naboo can go to experience life in a Palace. Halfway between a spa and a luxury hotel, it's staffed by entertainers who ensure the entire experience is stimulating and refreshing. In addition, Noble or Wealthy families will send children there to learn the Gentle Arts (all of which Naboo has fully weaponized) in preparation for their later roles in politics or business, since in Naboo, these arts are expected of anyone in power.
> 
> Eiritaé was one of Padmé's double/body guards hired on by bail "as a favor for old times sake." No one says which way the favor goes.
> 
> Eiritaé knows Leia was on Naboo, but she also knows she can't risk going back to Naboo herself with her position in the Organa family. Everyone needs to forget she was ever not Alderaanian. Leia neither knows Eiritaé is Naboo, nor that Eiritaé knows where she was, but is being discrete because she knows she learned Spy Stuff there.
> 
> The People's Palace was serving as a way spot for Jedi still on the run. To clarify, we do not specify if Mace died in this fire. The Empire's line is that he did, because the Imperial Troops are That Good. (Cue eyeroll)


	2. If they're singing about heartbreak, they've lived it - Paula Abdul

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Life never does quite go as planned.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For those of you who read chapter 1 early, notes have been added to it in our usual style (I couldn't get chapter notes separate from work notes, so Bairn had to go back in and do it) so you can absolutely go back and read that ridiculousness now.
> 
> Love Fest: OceG08, Dragontrix, salanaland, booklover94, magelord636, Dawnster, Darth_Mary_Sue, Actresspdx, Yarnmonster28, Sandystorm, RavenLilyRose, pm_me_puppy_pics, FantasyTLOU, sapientia_stulti, Yoseisame, ideawall, LordofEek, lukymiko, quadrad, lukeskywalkers, and 8 guest kudoers  
> Bonus points to commenters: Wynni, Artemis_90, Argentee, sapientia_stulti, and FantasyTLOU  
> Y'all are awesome.

After the fire that took the Naboo People’s Palace, the pattern changed. Leia was taken out of regular school and studied instead with tutors. Leia liked it better this way. She was well aware she was learning vastly different things than other children her age. Classic literature that she learned was fascinating and spoke to her soul in ways she hadn’t expected, while her former classmates learned “literature” that seemed  _ designed _ to discourage one from ever reading anything ever again. She was enough of a pessimist to think that was on purpose, but she only said so once. She didn’t like the sad-angry look Papa got on his face when she did. She learned History over coms and a two-week trip every spring with Grandmother Antilles. Two months of each summer, she spent on Naboo with Madame Sabé, a former Queen who had also been a bodyguard, learning everything from politics, to philosophy, to espionage and combat, with a healthy dose of Nubian classical literature. 

She liked her time on Naboo. Their stories and poems were full of hope wed to rage, a sense of what SHOULD be, with protagonists who fought to make that possible even in the face of what is. They stirred her heart and brought prickles to her skin with the sheer stubborn bravery of them. She liked that the protagonists just as often fought armed with words instead of blasters, carefully cornering and dismantling their foes in a trap of truth armed only with justice. _ It was different from the Amavikka stories she learned from Grandmother Jira, when she was on Tatooine for two months every winter. Alongside languages, patience, and life skills, she learned how to NOT stab someone who deserves it. (She  _ hated _ that last lesson, Grandmother Jira just laughed and said she knew a boy once who hated it too, and then told another Ekkreth story.) She deeply loved both story sets, and often felt they were two halves to a whole. On the surface, they looked nothing alike, but if you dug deeper, to the core of the stories, they felt… like the breath of a comma was all that separated them. One was a continuation, expansion of the other. This one was an enunciation of that one. The Alderaanian literature she learned at home from Mama just seemed to round it all out and bring the verses home to the chorus.

And the poems. The  _ songs _ . Each place had its own instruments, rhythms and cadences, verbiage and meanings and typical topics, and she learned them all, feeding them to her heart like water in the Dune Sea to her body. Eiritaé, Sabé, Jira, Lukka and Pooja happily entertained her thirst for them, comming her with more whenever they found one they thought she might like, Jira sending her finds via Lukka. 

The pattern changed again when she was 14. 

Grandmother Jira died while she was on Naboo. Lukka wasn’t  _ grieving _ when he commed her, he was  _ angry.  _ Jira was old, she didn’t move so well anymore, and hurt far more often. So her Depur sent her to stand in a Storm, and then just… neglected to let her back in.

Sabé held Leia while she screamed herself hoarse.

She put her stories away, she couldn't write. The characters felt hollow, the plot meaningless and bland. The words wouldn't come. She stared at a blank page for a long time.

It wasn't words that came first. It was a beat. Like the hard working-marching beats of Amavikka songs. Like a heartbeat, steady and calling. Over the top came the lilting brooks and rivers of Nubian ceremonial songs, then the steady-as-mountains Alderaani counter-harmonies soared between them. Words tumbled upon the page, roaring like the Krayt and weeping like Queen Polana. Silent-grief-rage of Ar-Amu whose children are still held, still hurt, by Depur.

Pooja came to find her as she sang a song of three Peoples, of freedom and Injustice, of grief and rage and hope, of the peace she hoped Jira had found with Ar-Amu and joined Her to wait for the freedom of others and the reckoning that  _ would _ come for the Depur. She didn't use those words, nor name the Grandmother Lost, those were  _ secrets, _ and more than just her life depended on them  _ staying _ secret, but the meaning was there all the same.

Pooja sat and listened, and when Leia's voice fell silent, opened her own mouth in song. It had taken her years to put words to the silence that sprang up in the wake of her aunt's funeral, a silence that could not be purged until the right words came. But the words did come eventually, as rage at the way the Empire forgot her aunt, loud in life as a thunderstorm, and just as unstoppable, forgot her words that once had moved mountains, overtook the silence. She shared them now with her friend, who needed to know she was not alone.

"That… wasn't Nubian," Leia said when Pooja finished. "The melody was, but the beat wasn't. How'd you get it?"

"No, it was Mandalorian. My aunt had...interesting friends.” Pooja answered cautiously, “Uncle Obi called Coruscant home, but if he hadn't, he'd have been Mando'a. He loved it like it was his. His men were supposed to be Mando, but didn't get the chance, so  _ he _ taught them, Uncle Rex and the others, the songs and culture they  _ should _ have been given and were denied. When they were here and Aunt Padmé and Uncle Ani wandered off, Uncle Rex would sing some of their war chants for me."

"Teach me?"

"Of course. We'll have to make a trip home, though. My mom kept a collection my aunt gathered and hid it away with my aunt's writings and other things our Illustrious Emperor would disapprove of."

"What sort of collection?"

"It starts with Jaster Mereel's Supercommando Codex and finishes with 187 of my aunt's essays. Some of Uncle Obi's speeches and treatises are in there, too, and holorecordings of Uncle Rex and the others sparring and playing and singing their war chants. And there's Uncle Ani's carvings and writing Aunt Padmé could read but none of us can, except to be sure Ani wrote it."

Leia was shocked to see that the writings of Pooja’s uncle were in Amatakka, but she carefully didn’t show it. Instead she told Pooja she thought she knew someone who could translate it, and got permission to send copies to Lukka. He was always better in the written, Amatakka’s alphabet was completely the opposite of Alderaanian or Nubian. He sent back translations; they were mostly love letters, with some discussions about war or machine schematics tossed in. Passionate, but practical. Leia thought it HIGHLY romantic.

There were also complaints about the Jedi Order. About the hypocrisy of telling younglings to limit their emotions when the Council acted no better. About the cruelty of taking children from their parents so young. About the utter frustration Ani felt when he had to hide his marriage. About the rage he felt when his own Padawan died. About the madness of sending children to war, about the madness of creating the clone troopers and forcing them to grow up in a handful of years just to die in a war that seemed based on stupidity.

Pooja read the translations with her, then agreed to help destroy them. The originals were risky enough, the  _ translations… _ it wasn’t worth it.

***

Leia and Pooja wrote their own letters. They sent each other triple-coded discussions of their daily lives, bits of poems they were enjoying, and even their own work. Leia liked the depth Pooja added to her work when she sent back a poem Leia had sent her with suggestions in the margins and a sheet of music to set it to. Pooja praised Leia’s understanding of symbolism and word choice when Leia re-wrote one of her poems to fit the tune of a popular song. They discussed what it would take to start their own band, how they could record songs when they lived on different planets, dreams inspiring the exchange of audio-files, tapes of their voices singing defiance.

They’d even picked a band name when the Emperor ‘invited’ the Senator of Naboo to retire, and someone nominated Pooja to take his place.

“I’m 18!” Pooja cried on their holo call. It was expensive, but worth it for some conversations. Comms never quite translated the face correctly, it was just too flat. “I’m not ready!”

“You’re older than your Aunt was when she was Queen,” Leia pointed out as she painted her toenails a defiant shade of purple. “I wish I could join the senate, but my Father says I have to wait another year at least. He also says it’s very boring and you won’t feel like you’re doing enough because you’ll just be in and I quote, interminably boring meetings all day.”

“Great, so it’s a stressful job and I won’t even have fun doing it,” Pooja complained. “At least the data rates between Coruscant and Alderaan are cheaper than the rates from Naboo. We can actually record some of our music and compile it correctly.”

“If I ask to come with Father for the next Senate season, we could even practice together!” Leia suggested. “Or perform. I hear there are places in the Capitol where you can use the stages without scheduling, you just go in and tell them you want to play.”

“I would be an utter scandal,” Pooja laughed. Her eyes did light up a bit, though, and Leia knew she’d caught her friend’s interest enough to get her plan in motion.

***

Leia was 15 when she traveled to Coruscant for the first time. She was enrolled in a three-month networking program for future Senators, and during the day she was a dutiful student of politics. She was quiet and graceful and sharply intelligent. She was witty and entertaining in all the ways she’d learned at the People’s Palace and from her mother and Sabé. People liked her, even if they didn’t consider her memorable.

In the evenings, though, people remembered her, even if they didn’t like her.

She wore bright wigs and bold masks and explored the lower levels of the city, looking for places that played loud music with driving beats.

She and Pooja, dressed in the same disguise of extravagance, sang songs on any stage that would have them, racking up Do Not Admit papers until planning their nights involved more maps and strategy than Pooja’s day job.

And together, they made a plan.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Naboo literature: Think Mercedes Lackey, Epic Romances focused around righting injustices and finding or fighting for freedom and equality, with a bit of Shakespeare Shenanigans and Word-play. Her favorite one is like Much Ado About Nothing's characters and writing style and banter on the Selenay Arc of Valdemar's plot.
> 
> _a silence that could not be purged until the right words came._  
>  Headcanon Naboo equates silence to grief to dark/black blues and purples. Silent like the night. The black-blues don't "say" anything to Nubians, deep and silent like the deep waters of the core or the depths of space, empty of life and meaning. Thus they became mourning colors, and silence also became grief. (Canon support being Qui-Gon Jinn's silent pyreside)
> 
> _called Coruscant home,_  
>  Naberrie family way of talking **around** the subject of Jedi-entanglements in the anti-Jedi atmosphere of the Empire.
> 
> _on any stage that would have them, racking up Do Not Admit papers_  
>  Also racking up a list of which places carefully did NOT give them a DNA.


	3. You can cage the singer but not the song - Harry Belafonte

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tatooine has Plans and Things To Say, and there's not much mere mortals can do to stop it from doing so.  
> R2-D2 Also Has Opinions.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter starts showing a bit more of the influence from Blue_Sunshine's Desert Storm series. The big difference that we use here between Fialleril's Tatooine Slave Culture canons and Blue_Sunshine's is that per Fialleril, Storm is not personified in Amavikka lore, does not have a name, and not as much meaning is granted to the Storm, while Desert Storm gives it a personhood and a role to play within the lore of Tatooine (and within the story). We have chosen to lean more on Blue_Sunshine's side in this.
> 
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Leia went back to Tatooine, at the regular time. They scheduled for the usual two months, even though Grandmother Jira, who she had loved as much as her legal grandmothers, was gone. Leia wasn't sure she'd stay the whole time but Beru was going to show her how the Sky Road works and introduce her to the local portions of the freedom trails, so she thought scheduling the extra time was wise. 

It was. Lukka had questions about the letters he'd translated for her and there was  _ something.  _ Something she had to do before she left, but she didn't know what, just yet.

She had barely set her bag down in the spare room on the Lars' farm when Lukka was there staring intently at her, waiting for her to acknowledge him. Not patiently, but waiting nonetheless. Lukka had always been better at  _ waiting _ than she was, she knew he'd win the game this time too, but made him wait just a bit longer anyway. She took her time unpacking her few things into the drawers, being far more careful with their placement and neatness than she usually was. Finally she couldn't stall any longer without actually being rude.

"Alright, what is it?"

Lukka raised an eyebrow at her, smirking at winning the game again before straightening to the point. At fifteen he hadn't gotten much taller than her, but was certainly catching up in the attitude department. "The  _ letters, _ Leia."

"I figured as much. What  _ about _ the letters?"

"Everything! Who, where,  _ how, _ what-the-kark-even?"

Leia sighed. "My friend on Naboo is Pooja Naberrie. Her aunt was Padmé Amidala, an influential senator of the Republic, and a very good and wise woman. What Pooja's family knows that no one else does, is that she was married to a Jedi named Anakin Skywalker and spent nearly as much time running into and out of danger to help others as he did. She certainly had more assassination attempts than he did. Because she  _ would not _ shut up about stopping the war, fixing the problems that caused the Separatists to secede, getting rights for the clones, cutting the excesses of power the then-Chancellor was abusing. Those letters were from a  _ very secret _ collection Pooja's family has. Any single item in it could get them executed for treason, and those letters are only the smallest portion of it. They didn't know what they said, only who wrote them. I recognized it as Amatakka and sent it to you because you're better at the written than I am. Now,  _ why?" _

"My father's name was Anakin Skywalker. My aunt and uncle said he was a merchant pilot of no importance who died in the war. Otherwise, he's not talked about, pretty much ever. I get  _ why _ , now. It would be...bad if anyone connected me to your friend's aunt's secret husband, wouldn't it?"

"Oh,  _ Force. _ Yes, yes it would be. What do you need?"

"I… my... cousin's com code?"

"Absolutely."

***

Lukka slid into her room late the next evening, while Leia was working on music from what she'd heard among the Amavikka that day. He had a… strange look on his face, somewhere between dumbfounded and considering. She rounded out the new chorus and paused to look up at him, setting her round drum aside.

"You're recording your own music, now?" he asked.

"Yeah," Leia smiled wryly, "After Grandmother Jira… the stories didn't work anymore. Music did. Pooja found me singing a song I wrote for Jira and sang back one she wrote for her aunt. We've been recording and sending to each other for six months now. I went to Coruscant after she got named Senator for Naboo and we went to all the cantinas to usurp their stages... with masks and fake identities, of course. Why?"

"Can I join you?"

Leia smiled, "get your flute and pull up a rug."

They spent the next week recording an album of seven songs between the two of them, with the help of Amavikka wherever they went learning about the Sky Road. Beru seemed to know what they were doing and smiled but very pointedly did not ask. Seven songs seemed the right number to stop at, seven being Ar-Amu's sacred number.

Lukka took over Leia's personal terminal to mix and master the album, and edit together the holos they took into an official music holo for the song she had written. He encoded each song with a short blurb of dedication. 

Leia was at somewhat of a loss for what to do when recording was done.

She spent a lot of time outside, practicing everything Sabé had taught her, meditating and doing katas for hand to hand and blasters. She still felt a pull of  _ something _ she needed to do, but she had yet to figure it out. It itched beneath her skin.

Until, that is, the day Lukka came to drag her inside saying that a storm was coming and would hit in full force within the hour. 

Beru understood. She adamantly did not  _ like _ it, but she understood that when the Desert Calls, you  _ answer. _ Lukka liked it even less, but helped her gather the things she needed, and loaned her an extra tunic and cloak for the added protection against the sand and wind, ensuring she had her com well protected, plenty of food and water, and a tarp to hide under if things got worse. 

Leia suspected he'd also put trackers on everything he handed her. Just in case. She rolled her eyes fondly and insisted she'd be fine. Then with one last look back, she tugged her black/purple scarf up over her nose and mouth and walked out into the Storm.

***

“Don’t worry, Artoo,” 3PO warbled, “I’m sure Mistress Leia will be fine. She knows what she’s doing. I hope.”

R2 stared at his brother, and wished, for the  ~~ (87,985,674th) ~~ 57,698,785th time that he had mobile ocular units, so he could roll his ocular unit at 3PO like  master AN-KN used to roll his ocular units at OB-1. He was  _ sure _ it would reduce his annoyance at 3PO claiming R2 was worried when 3PO needed the reassurance. 3PO needed more looking after than AN-KN, and that was saying something. R2 had not worried about LA-A since she got her mobility issues worked out 12.4876 years ago. 3PO worried about  _ everything. _ The memory wipe he had asked BA-L for hadn’t helped any, surprisingly. R2 would have thought that without knowing how bad things wound up for their previous owners, 3PO would worry rather less _. _ But no, if anything, he worried  _ more _ . 

R2 sighed and rolled off to show reminder-holos to 3PO of LA-A being fully competent, even when hilarious errors occurred. If LU-A happened to learn more about his sister-unit in the process, well, that wouldn’t be  _ his _ fault.

It’d be 3PO’s,  _ obviously. _

He wondered if OB-1 was still on planet. OB-1 was fun. He'd need an excuse to go look for him though. LA-A was also fun, she might give him one, yet.

~~ He missed OB-1. ~~

~~ And RX. ~~

~~ And KO-D. ~~

~~ And PDM-A. ~~

~~ And AN- ~~

"Stop worrying, R2. I told you, she'll be fine."

But first, he had a brother to calm.

***

There were voices, in the Storm.

At first it was just memories of Jira telling her about Lukka the Storm. About how it did not matter to the Storm how great and powerful one was, nor how lowly and poor, it would take, or leave you alive as  _ it  _ would. About how, if you could make it through, one might find freedom on the other side, but no one walked through it without being changed. Becoming wiser, better. About how all the detritus and chaff were scoured away, from the land, from the soul, leaving only what was strongest, what was purest. The Storm renders all things equal, one way or another. In the face of a Storm, all things stand, or fall, on their own merits and nothing more. 

There was freedom in that, alone, even if it didn't take the chips, or your Depur, you knew your value as a solid truth, regardless of your price at market or how many things you owned.

But such knowledge never came without a cost, without risk, not anywhere in the galaxy. Tatooine was just more obvious about it. The Storm would show you who you were...if you could survive it.

The voices changed. Jira was still there, pointing her attention to details she needed to make it through, keep your head down and eyes covered, check your scarf over your nose, a gust coming  _ now _ , rock on your left to duck behind  _ here. _ But other voices joined her, some vaguely familiar, some completely foreign to her, some she'd never heard but felt she should  _ know. _

She paused, unsure where to go, which voice to follow. Jira's voice was behind her, as always, and she knew she could follow it back home. 

Left was anger and pain and  _ "Don't stop, don't ever stop, they'll catch you and never let go. Dukkra ba dukkra." _

Straight ahead was sorrow so deep she couldn't breathe and  _ "Go, and don't look back." _

Ahead and a bit to the right was a song she couldn't quite hear the words to, and a grief that felt like home, crushing responsibility that felt old and well known.

Right was a cold rage and burning grief and  _ "You were my brother, I loved you." _

She didn't want  _ any _ of those things. All of them hurt.

_ "Sometimes there  _ **_are_ ** _ no good paths forward and every road leads to pain, yours or others',"  _ Jira whispered,  _ "but that does not mean you do not go anyway." _

"But which do I need, and where am I needed?" Leia whispered back.

_ "Excellent questions, daughter," _ the wind whispered back from all angles,  _ "the very best questions to ask." _

_ "Do you know who you are?"  _ The sand beneath her feet asked in return.

_ "Do you know what your name means?" _ The sky pressed down to ask.

Leia firmed her spine and stood straight in the wind and sand, “I am Leia, named for the Mighty One who cannot be bound by any chain. Named, also, Beloved. I am fifteen, I do not know all of myself yet, nor is that expected. I have far yet to journey, I am okay with not knowing just who I am yet, I know who I am not. I will know who I am in time, I can wait.”

The wind smiled and the sand hummed in consideration.

_ “Every path before you has lessons. Each would change you in different ways, each would show you a different part of yourself. One path only contains a person for you to help, but all contain something valuable.” _

“And I can only walk one.”

_ “That is the way life works, many paths, only one can be walked.” _

The voices returned, and Leia listened closely to each of them in turn.

_ “You could also go back home, it is always an option.” _

“And learn nothing, of course.”

_ “Nothing you will learn will be enjoyable, much will be painful.” _

“Learning always is, when it’s of value,” Leia answered wryly. 

She made her decision, faced it, and stepped forward.

***

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Sky Road_  
>  In American history, the secretive paths and people who heled slaves escape north of the Mason-Dixon Line (the politically drawn border above which it was federally illegal to own slaves and below which it was federally legal) to freedom was called the Underground Railroad. Both halves of the term are inappropriate for a Space story such as this: not even backwoods like Tatooine have used trains in centuries, if not millennia; there _are_ no railroads, it would be a nonsense word in the Galactic Republic let alone the Empire. And while the Underground Railroad was exactly that in many places, the freedom trail of Tatooine does not involve underground anything.  
> The Sky Road both pays homage to the Underground Railroad and the real-world heroes who manned it and draws on much older lore. Tatooine, as an Outer Rim world, stands in a similar position within its galaxy as Earth does in ours, and their galaxy is similarly shaped, which means that like Earth, there is a band of tightly clustered stars spanning from one horizon to the other that is the bulk of the galaxy. That band in our own lore has been referred to many times as both a river and a road, and _there_ is where slavery is (nominally) illegal, and slaves much harder to reacquire. Much like crossing the Ohio River to the north or the Rio Grande to the south brought freedom, for the Amavikka, crossing the River of Stars brings freedom. Both here and there, one only needed to _get to the river_ to be counted as free. You'd either die in sight of it, die crossing it, or live free on the other side, and it didn't much matter which happened, either way, you'd be free and Depur could not touch you again. As the Road to the Ohio River passed through tunnels and old mines in places leading it to be called the Underground, the Road to the Star River passes through the sky, and thus we have called it the Sky Road.
> 
> _setting her round drum aside._  
>  Like a bodhran, but we haven't decided what to call the specific instrument in-verse. Hand drum has a specific instrument attached to it.  
> Round drum works as a general term. In Irish, bodhran comes from bodhar, meaning deaf or dull, because the sound is usually sort of diffuse. and Leia's drum has a similar sound.
> 
> We headcanon that most Amavikka instruments are made of bone and sinew-string, japoor, hide, and scrap metal, since wood is scarce, so Lukka's flute is a bone flute, and Leia's drum is hide stretched over a ring of japoor, the ring and handle of it is old, it was Jira's drum, and her teacher-grandmother's before her. Leia hasn't replaced the hide since Jira gave it to her several years ago, so it has a more muffled sound, though she tightens it as she needs to.  
> Lukka plays with making new instruments out of new materials and seeing what sound-differences they make. His main flute is an heirloom Anooba thigh bone, and it is deep and low sounding. He's made one of a rib, higher sounding, and the curve adds something...interesting to the sound. He also plays with the sound-differences with metal ring bodhrans and japoor and bone rings, and is currently trying a composite of japoor and bone held together by metal. And playing with what happens if you use different hides. He's also made a guitar like instrument from the skull plates of a wraid*, eopie sinew for strings and bantha rib for neck.
> 
> _R2 stared at his brother, and wished, for the (87,985,674th) 57,698,785th_  
>  The first number counts all the time he's known Threepio, the second number counts from when Threepio's memory was wiped and he technically is a different being now, even if his personality is 99.984% the same.
> 
> R2 decided forty years ago that as Fleshies turn designations into word-names (ie: C3PO=Threepio, R2-D2=Aretoo, M3PO=Emtrey) it was perfectly acceptable and egalitarian for him to translate Flesh-names into designations in his own language. YES, many of them ARE puns. Did you really expect them not to be? He mostly does this for Fleshies he _likes_ just like Fleshies that don't like him insist on calling him R2-D2, he figures this means that the translation is how you indicate your approval of them, and thus proper-names fleshies he Doesn't Like, right back.
> 
> R2's Designations:  
> AN-KN = Anakin  
> PD-MA = Padme  
> OB-1 = Obi-Wan  
> RX = Rex  
> KO-D = Cody.  
> LU-A = Luke, Lukka (LU-A marks him as same-make-slight-difference-model as LA-A. it's how he designates their twin-ness, not that he ever tells anyone that)  
> LA-A = Leia  
> BA-L = Bail
> 
> (notes continued in comments)


	4. Singing is a way of escaping - Edith Piaf

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ar-Amu does not explain, because Ar-Amu is the Mother of All, not the Explainer of All.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Edits for notes: Spoon shortages, work, WiFi woes, and Asshole Coworkers interrupt many things including posting schedules and notes writing.
> 
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> Bonus Points: TwilitLloyd, ideawall, RavenLilyRose, FantasyTLOU, Wynni

Turning away from the other paths was hard, she _wanted_ the knowledge they promised, the _home_ they held. But they were not the ones containing someone who needed her help. All the paths held knowledge she needed, but she could not turn away from helping others when she was needed.

And that was a lesson of herself, too. She _could_ give up her own wants for the sake of another, even knowing the chance would never come again, and be okay with that decision.

Listening for the path was hard, the voices came and went in a confusing jumble, and none of them familiar.

Colors swirled, and Leia found herself pondering the concept of colors. Most people think of Tatooine, and deserts in general, as colorless, white and beige and tan and nothing else. But white, especially white _light,_ contains all the colors, to be revealed by reflection off of things it hits, or through refraction as it filters through air, water, glass, or other such things. With all the uncountable tiny crystalline structures of sand in the air, colors were everywhere.

Which, to Leia, meant she was surrounded by a wealth of _meanings_ , all of them different, based on perspective. Naboo and Alderaan both had… complicated relationships with colors, having vastly different meanings for minute differences for them. Alderaan had six different “whites” that were recognized with different meanings, and Naboo...was much worse, overall. Then you throw Mandalore, which was much less complicated, but much louder, and Leia couldn’t make out which meanings were intended by the Storm’s colors. White was purity, peace, freedom, happiness, celebrations, weddings, unity, calm, heat, death, rage, ferocity, readiness, beginnings, healing, harmony, rest, mirth, or mourning, depending on which of the four cultures she used to look at it, and which exact shade of white it was. Black was deepest-grief, vengeance, justice, healing-rest, destruction, chaos, freedom, power, agency, or secrecy. Tan was unsteady ground, an explosion waiting to happen, or entirely neutral. And those were the _easy_ colors, she was surrounded by whole swirling rainbows of colors, each of which had as many definitions as she had fingers. Except red, which had twice as many, and all of them contradictory. Naboo alone had ten different reds with wildly different meanings.

Leia realized she was muttering about this to the Jira-voice around the time her mouth asked whether the colors were also clues to the path she was trying to follow and if so, which meanings should she be applying to understand the clues?

Jira’s voice held a smile, _“All meanings are accurate, so long as they are accurate for you. The perspective is_ **_yours_ ** _. What do YOU see in them?”_

Leia rolled her eyes and sat in the lee of a rock to sip at her water and ponder the question more carefully. Part of her wanted to go the Nubian route and just have All The Meanings, with only exceedingly subtle variations of color dividing them, assigning the white of bone to mourning and the white of sunlight to celebrations, and the yellow-white of the deep desert to rage, but that seemed like _asking_ for a headache.

But… Did she have to _separate_ them to keep all of them? Dukkra ba Dukkra. Death WAS freedom, so a mourning color that was also a celebration color and the color of rage and the color of peace and also new beginnings was appropriate. Dukkra ba Dukkra, black was ALSO Justice _and_ mourning, _and_ peace, _and_ vengeance, _and_ destruction _and_ freedom. These…were not the separate, disparate concepts they appeared to be. Alderaan’s purple’s Wisdom, in the here and now, WAS the Defiance of Naboo’s purple. Blue was water _and_ truth _and_ peace _and_ life.

Leia thought “and” was likely to become her favorite word, at this rate. She certainly understood Pooja’s stance when asked for her favorite color, namely, “All of them.”

Green was duty, growth and healing, and also poison, illness, and rot. Yellow was warmth and light, creativity, caustic and warning, and laughter, distance and speed. Ekkreth probably loved yellow, he’d absolutely be the sort to creatively poison a dumbass who deserved it with a virulent neurotoxin and laugh and celebrate it. Probably with fire. Orange was fire, and all the many meanings Fire had, from hearth to forge to maelstrom to volcano to pyre. On Tatooine it was sandstorms, which were the ecological equivalent to the brush and forest firestorms in the hotter climates of Alderaan's mountains, and the grass fires of Naboo’s plains. Nobody really argued the meaning of Orange, it always tied in somehow to one of the meanings of fire and storm. Orange was a very honest color, in that, simple and uncomplicated, Leia thought. Unlike red.

Leia capped her water and firmly decided to try and untangle the meanings of red _later._

***

There was a thrum in her bones, the first sign of danger. Her body tensed, her mind stilled, and she sank into the knowledge her skeleton passed from the sand below her feet to her core. Some great and terrible Thing was moving beneath the sands, something impossibly large and impossibly powerful. Something that did not care about Leia, something simply too great to be bound by such feeble concepts as mercy or desire. If she was in its way, she would die, and that was it.

Leia stood very still as the vibrations grew stronger, as the Thing neared her. She could feel her gut twisting and her fear crystalizing in her solar plexus, a knot of hardened pain keeping her from breathing. She tried to swallow and couldn’t, her mouth suddenly as dry as the desert around her.

The vibrations peaked, a bass roar through her bones, the feeling of standing too close to the amplification equipment in the rougher cantinas in the deepest parts of Coruscant. It shook her and rattled her teeth in her jaw and she felt as though she would shake apart, another dissolving rock turned to sand in the force of the Thing’s passing. She fought to hold herself together, the battering sound around her erasing the worry and philosophy that lived in the back of her mind, overwhelming the constant drum of her careful education in genteel lies. There was only her, and the Thing.

 _"Do you know who you are?"_ The Desert asked again. Leia did not answer it, for words were not necessary. Words were also not available, shattering and blowing away like the sand around her. The hard knot of fear had also shattered, swept away with the Storm that followed the Thing, unless the Thing followed the Storm. That was not necessarily any different. The Storm and the Thing were one, a dyad of forces. They were born together and they would die together, and there was no force powerful enough to stop them both when they stood together.

The vibrations slowed, changed course, and Leia felt giddy, her heart in her throat as she realized the Thing had circled, and was laying around her, a ring encircling her at the center, the eye in the Storm.

 _"Do you know what your name means?"_ The Desert asked again.

A terrible head, a great selachian maw with jagged angled teeth burst from the sand. Twin horns curved up and back on either side of a pointed ridge, a regal crown on the head of a monstrous Queen, wings like a cape and white as the noon-suns behind her.

“Leia…” The beast, the Krayt Dragon, roared and Leia’s clothes whipped backwards. Her feet slid, but she did not fall to her knees. Honestly, she had somewhat forgotten she _had_ knees. “The Beloved One.”

The Storm whipped at her back, forcing her clothes to pull the other direction, sliding her feet closer to the great maw of the Dragon. The Dragon snorted at the sand thrown in its face and plunged back into the sand, snaking away beneath the Desert, leaving a trail of dust and disturbed sand.

Leia blinked, certain something important had just happened, but too exhausted from the experience to be frightened by it. She took another small sip of her water, holding it in her mouth as she capped the canteen. It sank into the parched flesh of her mouth and tongue like water into the Desert itself.

“What next?”

***

The storm lasted for days, Leia bunked down in the shady lees of large rocks during the high heat of the day and walked at night, even though the winds grew impossibly stronger as the second sun set; wind was only a quarter of the hazard of being in the desert during a storm for days on end.

Gradually, she got better at the trick of _listening,_ pulling meaning from the voices that made no sense. 

And she truly did mean _no sense_ . The wind talked in the voices of men she’d never heard before, but it was like it’d taken fragments of sentences spoken by three people and smashed them together in new wholes. The sky returned in the same manner, but using the voices of women, women Leia had never met, both being dead before she was born, but _knew_ the voices of. Shmi Skywalker made sense, she had lived on Tatooine all her life and been Amavikka to boot, the Desert using _her_ voice was logical. Leia had no idea how the Desert acquired _Padme Amidala’s_ voice or why it would choose to use a Nubian politician. Naboo doesn’t even have A desert, it’s core is water clear through, and grassland plains do not equate except in the quantity of wind.

Worse, she was kicking herself for not sitting down to the problem of Red earlier, for the voices, after meeting the _other_ Leia, came with _dozens_ of shades of red and few greens and beyond. The voices, as little sense as they made, were easier. She closed her eyes, put aside the sources of the voices and the tones of them -- they didn’t matter, really -- and focused on the words themselves.

She was forced to open her eyes when she tripped over a rock. 

It was red. _Of course._

Sighing, she headed for another rock to rest in the lee of. _Clearly,_ Ar-Amu, the Storm, the Force, _somebody_ wanted her to sort out what red means. She wasn’t sure why it _mattered,_ but she also was not the one in charge here at the moment, so _fine. She’d figure out karking RED._

She drew up the colors in her mind and listed off their meanings, by culture that used those meanings. She started with Mando’a. Mando’a was simple and preferred things they could easily shout over a battlefield and still be understood, and, as such, only had three reds, which was more than they had for any other color. Loud, but uncomplicated.  
  
Maroon was _power._

True-red was _family, honoring a parent_.

Scarlet was _defiance._

Alderaan reds were only slightly more complicated, so she listed them next.

Deep red, the color of blood spilt and left to dry, was _corruption, malice, wrath, evil._

Crimson, the color of her mother’s favorite roses (the color of fresh blood) was _family, passion, luck._

Scarlet, the color of holly berries, was _negative. No. Do not pass go, do not collect 200 credits. Go kark yourself with the bantha you rode in on._ It was also the color of _defiance._

Vermillion, the closest to orange Alderaan colors got while still being distinctly red, was _Warning, Danger. Devastation._ It was the color the sky turned when the forest fires came up the mountain ridge near her grandmother’s farm.

Naboo had 59 meanings to colors, often contradictory within base-colors, and Red had ten of them. Ten sub-colors within the realm of red, some so close that some people couldn’t tell them apart. It was nearly as complicated as their flower speak, and they used it _constantly_ in dress, decor, art, and every other thing color could _possibly_ be applied to. Nubians were always talking, even when their voices weren’t. Leia didn’t have names for all the colors, so she simply assigned them numbers as she listed meanings:

  1. Resolve, unendable will
  2. Steady, drive, conviction
  3. Love, romance, sensuality
  4. Desire, lust, or lesser crushes
  5. Listen! Messenger of the Gods, sacred, blood, life
  6. Life, passion
  7. violence, anger
  8. Courage, strength
  9. Burning, unquenchable rage
  10. Warning, Danger



Tatooine had nearly as many meanings for red, but she didn’t know the exact colors that it applied to. She knew base-red was the color of bedrock, and therefore symbolizing steadfast strength, courage, unshakable foundations, survival, and endurance. She knew that other reds meant love, life and warmth, sacrifice, protection, violence, pain, and death, and also fire and all the good and bad things fire represents, but she didn’t know which reds meant which meanings.

What she didn’t know was how to make all those things mean the _same_ thing like she did with white and black and the other colors.

She groaned in frustration and took another sip of water, listening to the Sky and Wind have a conversation with each other At her for a bit, letting the words of compassion and anger, stability and strife sink in while she pondered the question.

Because she thought organization made life easier (unlike Lukka who insisted on having everything he could possibly need out where he could see it easily), she decided to sort the meanings into categories first, wishing she had a data pad to keep track.

Calls, things red says: _Listen! Warning! Danger! No! Stop!_ ...all things with exclamation points demanding attention, “Take Heed!” And Leia can work with that. 

Emotions, then: _love, desire, romance, anger, rage, passion, wrath, lust._ Those….those were mostly opposites. Leia wasn’t sure what connected them. So she… made herself feel them to examine them better, pulling up memories to provoke them. It was _exhausting._ None of them were wishy-washy or half-felt things. Which...was a connection. Strong, consuming emotions. Feeling on more solid ground with two connections drawn, she turned to the next group.

Attributes: _courage, sacred, evil, strength, resolve, stability, endurance, corruption, sensuality, malice, willpower, drive, steadiness._

. . . Nope. She didn’t have a clue how to unify those into a single concept. Maybe one of the other groups would give her a clue.

Secondary things: _warmth, life, luck, power, family, pain, death, resistance, defiance, devastation, conviction, violence, foundations, Messenger, survival, sacrifice, protection._

Not. Helpful. At all.

Root things, things the color comes from: _Bedrock, blood, fire._

Motion out of the corner of her eye caught her attention and _pulled_ , a swirl of color of almost all of the reds she knew, with flashes of oranges and yellows, that nagged at something in her memory, somewhere else she’d seen that particular combination of colors. Her stomach dropped as the memory became clear.

_Blood and Fire._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A note on contradictory color symbolism.  
> On Tatooine white was for death and rage, to the Mandalorians and, by extension, the clone troops of Anikin and Obi-Wan white was for new beginnings, to an Alderaanian it was peace and mourning without the rage aspect, but on Naboo it was for celebrations. Black on Alderaan was for Torhu the Destroyer, a spirit of complete destruction and death who was also often the means of justice, for Mando’a, too, it meant justice, to the Amavikka it was the freedom of night. Naboo had a...complicated relationship with the color, as they had many different meanings based on the exact type of black in use, blue-black like the depths of the water-core or the void of space was for mourning, while red-black was for vengeance, and green-black for rest and healing. On Coruscant purple was for opulence and wealth, on Alderaan for wisdom, on Naboo for defiance, on Tatooine it was one of three colors associated with water. Red was for parents, or family, or life and blood, or luck, or violent-death, or wealth, holy or evil, passion, anger, love, creativity, rage, or warning of danger all depending on your point of view.
> 
> TL;DR, Naboo is VERY Extra about their color symbolism. (Bairn was kind enough to post the images Valky had to make to keep track of this nonsense [Lookin at you, Naboo] on her Tumblr here: https://bairnsidhe.tumblr.com/post/639443791756066816/ )
> 
>  _The Storm and the Thing were one_  
>  Storm and Dragon are one... Lukka and Leia are a dyad... somehow she walks away from this not yet knowing Luke is her brother, but when she learns that, it'll feel like she already knew that.
> 
>  _"Leia.... The Beloved One."_  
>  She can't exactly Word right now, but this is the moment she combines the concepts of Mighty One Leia and Beloved Leia. Just like the colors, Leia means Mighty AND Beloved, because they are the same concept in the Desert.
> 
> The Authors know that a grassland has plenty in common with a desert, what with limited bodiversity, sequestered water, and practically no shelter beyond what you can make or bring. (Bairn hails from the "shore" of America's Great Grass Sea, so trust me, it is Known.) Leia, however, is a child of temperate mountains, harsh deserts, and the relatively damp Lake Country of Naboo. She's had exactly one interaction with the Plains, which we'll describe next chapter.
> 
> Every time Leia sets aside an element she finds to confusing, the Force is sighing and rolling it's ocular units at her, but shrugs, because setting that lesson aside for later means she doesn't miss out on the OTHER lessons it's trying to cram into the time allotted.
> 
> Some reference about what we consider "base" colors:  
> English base colors are Black, White, Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo, Violet, Brown.  
> Alderaan base colors are Black, White, Red, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo, Violet, Pink, Brown.  
> Naboo base colors are Black, White, Grey, Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Teal, Blue, Indigo, Violet, Brown.  
> Amavikka base colors are Black, White, Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Brown.
> 
> Honestly we're impressed by Leia, since we had to take copious notes on this chapter RE: Colors. She did it all in her head.


	5. Sing it for the boys, sing it for the girls; everytime that you lose it, sing it for the world. - My Chemical Romance

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Leia has Opinions, and no difficulty sharing them. Not even with the cosmic entities and metaphysical concepts that inspire them.
> 
> Ben has a Headache. Four headaches, actually.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> LoveFest: Celstese, DiamantStorm, pnwblondey, Yanna_of_the_Forest, LadyLizabeth78, QueenieGirl276, Michapuss, ob_la_di_ob_lah_da, krimsonvoiid, Vector_Arrows, and 8 guest kudoers.
> 
> Bonus Points to RavenLilyRose, gladiatrix, QueenieGirl276, and TwilitLloyd
> 
> Starts with the flashback last chapter ended on.

It had been late summer. Dry, as dry as Naboo ever got anyway, and the grasslands had gone from green to gold earlier than usual. They’d received the emergency signal and been called to help evacuate. Sabé woke them in the dead of night, twelve year old Leia was groggy and confused, but a single sentence had 16 year old Pooja up and dressing:

“Fire on the North Paonga Plains and the wind has changed.”

The smoke had been the first thing she saw, thick and dark. It hung in the air like an angry thunderhead, stinging her nose and mouth with the echoes of the burning fire it came from. Pooja had tsked her tongue about proper controlled burn protocols and started helping people load speeders with children, pets, and the basic essentials.

Leia remembered the taste of burnt meat. No matter what she did she couldn’t wash it from her tongue for days after. She remembered blistered hands, her own and others, passing buckets of fire suppressant down a line to be poured into the hasty ditch that was all that stood between the town and destruction. She remembered the fierce grin on the face of a firefighter setting fire to the ground on the other side of the ditch.

“It’s a burnout,” Pooja explained, her voice projecting like they’d learned for public speaking, just to be heard over the sound of the fire and the response. “Gets rid of anything the fire can use, starves it. If they’d been paying attention to the weather they’d have done this last week and we wouldn’t need to be here.”

Memory surged up and hit Leia like a fist to the gut. The fire jumped the line. A young man who’d been next to her in the bucket line had grabbed an old woman and shoved her onto his speeder to get her out of the blaze, then run from it on foot. He hadn’t made it far before his clothes caught, burning red and orange as he ran for the bare dirt of the town center, falling to the dirt to roll and writhe in agony.

Leia had been the first by his side, but she couldn’t do anything about the angry red welts raised on his legs and back. Pooja had been right behind her though, and happily pointed out how bright the red was, to the man’s relief. They’d laughed and smiled as Pooja showed Leia how to pack cooling gel onto the burns and wrap them in bandages of cloth so loosely woven it almost wasn’t cloth.

Leia remembered how  _ intense _ everything had been. Every sense was turned up to maximum, her heart had beat like the drumline in her favorite songs, every second felt important as adrenaline rushed through her system, a battle-memory of long dead ancestors calling her to let loose the war-cry and lose herself in the fight. Her love for Pooja and Naboo had been so intense when she faced the fire. She had never felt so alive as she had knowing she could die if they failed to stop it. There had been a clarity in it, a serenity of knowing that what she did mattered, and that if she failed she would not live to see the consequences. She had understood the firefighter’s glee, the relief of the burned man, the steadfast diligence she saw in the face of chaos. 

All of those were the correct reaction to a night of blood and fire.

So too was the frightened weeping of children, the anger Pooja held that the fire had not been prevented, the rolling disgust in her stomach as she tried not to wonder whose burned flesh she was tasting in the back of her throat.

Afterwards, after the fire was out and Leia had finally walked away from the medical tent, treating burn victims and people who’d inhaled too much smoke, she let herself cry. Sabé had come to join her outside the village, by the fire break, staring out at the blasted waste left by the burned out fire.

“The fire doesn’t change us,” Sabé explained, in her sideways manner, “it reveals us. Who we choose to be in the face of fire is who we always were. It gives us a chance to be more.”

“I hate it,” Leia had said, wiping tears from her eyes. “Why does it ever happen? Why can’t we put all the fires out, get speeders or landers and drop water from the lakes on them when they start?”

“Because if we stop  _ all _ the fires, the planet dies,” Sabé said, as dry as the plains. “The grasslands need fire to reproduce and grow, the animals that live in the grasslands need the grass, and we need  _ them. _ The old grasses need to burn to release their seeds and grow more grass next year and dead plants choke the soil if left alone, making no room for the new ones to grow. Small fires do that, and they usually mean there’s not enough dead and dry to threaten our homes.”

“You’re saying the fire is  _ good?”  _ Leia asked incredulously. Sabé laughed.

“Fire is neither Good nor Evil. It simply is itself, and it demands that same simplicity of all who would face it. Fire is powerful, and dangerous, and  _ necessary. _ It is beyond things like goodness. Rather like a thunderstorm is neither good nor evil, it just  _ is. _ The same fire that renews the land can kill. The same fire that can kill can save lives. Some day, I would like to have you help the burn teams during a controlled burn, so you can see how this  _ ought _ to be managed.” 

Leia chewed that idea a bit. She wanted to understand, but it seemed too big, too upsetting.

“And without fire,” Sabé added, “we would never know  _ ourselves. _ It is a mirror, reflecting us how the Gods see us, how we  _ can _ be, if we can learn to live with all the passion the fire brings.”

“Passion?” Leia asked, her nose scrunching in confusion. And in ash-laden sneeze.

“In ten months, that village will be welcoming an entire batch of new babies,” Sabé said with a laugh. “Grass isn’t the only thing that reproduces with a fire.”

“EW, too much information, Sabé!” Leia had protested, but a part of her understood. If she loved someone, loved them like that, anyways, and they’d faced the fire together… if she’d felt for them like the fire made her feel for Naboo…. Sabé was right, there was passion to be found in the fire.

“Somethings,” Sabe smiled, “Just  _ are _ and are neither good things nor bad things until the moment someone  _ uses _ them, and even then it depends entirely on how they're used and why.”

Sabé had worked with Leia’s father to ensure she could be back on Naboo to see the plains in the beginning of spring, the new shoots just poking up from what had been barren blackness, a long-eared rodent and several young ones of the same type nibbling on the tender shoots. It was relieving to see, but she still hadn’t understood it.

***

_ Powerful. Necessary. Dangerous. Beyond goodness or evil. Exclamation points. Nothing wishy-washy or half-felt. Revealing. Life, power, people, fire, blood, and Force: Things neither good nor evil, both and neither, and a great big tangled  _ **_mess._ **

Well, it was a unified definition, but Leia didn’t think she liked it, it was altogether uncomfortable. The sky, Ar-Amu, she realized now, chuckled with Shmi’s voice and brushed against her.  _ “All the best things are, if they’re worthwhile.” _

_ “No one says you have to  _ **_like_ ** _ it though,”  _ the wind, Storm, agreed.

She rolled her eyes at the Storm having an  _ attitude _ and stepped out from the lee of the rock…

And directly into a ravine she hadn’t seen.

“Thank you, Lukka, that was  _ ever _ so  **helpful,”** she muttered from three meters lower than she’d started. “Ow.”

_ “I know,” _ Storm whispered smugly, like the utter bastard he was.

***

The ravine she’d found with her rear was mercifully wind-free in comparison to the flats above, so Leia took her scarf off and shook the worst of the sand out of it, flipping it around so the white-and-yellow side was out. She left her goggles in place because it was still raining sand, even if the wind wasn’t trying to drive it into her lungs anymore.

The voices weren’t so strong down here, but the nudges were. If anything, they were stronger. She sighed and did her best to nudge back before following. It’s not like she had anything better to do at the moment. What she assumed was the Force, given that Ar-Amu and the Storm had made their wills clear with voices and colors, felt like a chuckle and nudged her again. Pushy bastard.

Fifteen minutes of walking, and being nudged whenever she came to a fork in the labyrinthine ravine, she found… well, she assumed the person she’d come to help.

It was a human male, she assumed, she’d have to ask later, in much repaired clothes, with a broken leg and nothing in the way of desert-survival gear with him. The only liquid was a bottle of Corellian brandy older than she was.  _ Well, at least he has good taste in how to kill himself, _ a hysterical part of her mind snickered.

“My field medic training is  **not** rated for Tatooine sandstorms!” she shouted up at the sky, where Storm still raged.

The man groaned, “shouting at  _ me _ won’t help. Who?”

Leia sighed and bent to help him sit up against the canyon wall. “My name is Leia, the Storm called, and I answered. Storm is an utter bastard and I’m mad at him right now. Force is a  _ pushy _ bastard and I’m mad at  _ them, _ right now, too. Them, it. Whatever, I’ll figure that out  _ later. _ When they aren’t both snickering in my general direction. Drink some  _ water _ please, then I’m setting and splinting your leg, which is about the best I can do in a ravine with no supplies and a sandstorm raging.”

“The Force does that,” the man nodded amiably, “I’ve taken to ignoring everything it says until it can do so without  _ laughing _ about it. Call me Ben.”

“Hello, Ben. Does ignoring it actually help?”

Ben hummed as he sipped at the water, “Depends what you mean by help. It helps me feel better, because spite is eternal, but otherwise, no, not really. The Force will continue to be the Force and do whatever it damned well pleases, up to and including laughing at us poor mortals, no matter what we do.”

“Good to know,” Leia grumbled, taking a firm hold of his foot and leg, “unpleasantness on three, one, two,” she tugged before three, as Sabé and Jira had both taught her.

_ “Sithspit,” _ Ben swore, “Why do you medics always  _ do _ that?”

“Three. I have no idea,” Leia answered blithely, “Sabé and Jira, who never met each other, both told me to, and said it was important to do it, but never  _ did _ explain why.” She pushed the canteen towards his mouth again as he boggled at her.

He took a drink, still staring at her.

"What?" She asked, figuring he would be like Lukka, her friend, not the Storm, and be capable of out-waiting her anyway.

"Sabé. You said 'never met.' Is Sabé…?" He couldn't seem to say the word.

"Dead? No, not unless something catastrophic happened in the last four weeks and Pooja had the poor taste not to com me. Jira is though... six months ago. Her master decided she wasn't  _ useful _ anymore. Why?"

Ben seemed to be struggling to breathe normally, "Is Bail dead?"

"No. You know my father?"

Ben startled a wry laugh, half hysterics, "Know your father, yes, you could say that. I was friends with Bail. Maybe slept with him once or twice. Might have slept with Breha once or twice, too."

That, that was not something Leia particularly needed to know, but she was certain he didn't currently have a functioning brain to mouth filter, between the brandy, the pain, and possibly dehydration and sleep deprivation.

"What are you doing on Tatooine, then?" She asked instead, refusing to follow up on that part.

"Leia. I am of an age with your father and familiar with the feeling of the Force laughing at me. Why do you  _ think _ I'm out here? I'm  _ hiding. _ The Empire is well aware of my relationship with your parents. They,  _ and you, _ would have been in danger were I  _ not _ on Tatooine."

She supposed that made sense. But while his brain to mouth filter was broken… "Did you know my birth parents too?"

Ben suddenly sombered. "Yes. I knew them. Loved them like the family I never had. It's his birthday today, or was, whenever it was that I fell down here. And the Force was laughing at me again. Hence," he raised the bottle, "me drinking. And that is  _ all _ I'm going to say on the subject."

He finished the statement by uncorking the bottle and taking a fairly large swallow.

"I know, I'm aware that me knowing anything is  _ not safe _ for a lot of people," Leia waited for him to bring the bottle back to his mouth. "Besides, my friend Lukka is in the same ship, as it were, but we already figured out why talking about Anakin Skywalker is a bad idea."

Ben spluttered and coughed. "You… you know Luke."

Leia looked at him funny, "Yes? We've been friends for years. He helped me translate letters Pooja has from her Uncle Ani to her Aunt Padmé that were written in the secret slave-language a few months ago. That's how we figured out why  _ his _ parents are never ever talked about. Why?"

"I'm going to  _ kill _ Bail," he muttered, "Pooja Naberrie has letters?"

"Letters, the Supercommando Codex, Padmé Amidala's essays, a few treatises by Obi-Wan Kenobi, holos of clone troopers playing and singing. We destroyed the translations once we read them, though, the ones no one could read were dangerous enough," Leia nodded.

Ben concentrated a moment and seemed to suddenly become sober, looking at her with clear eyes that seemed to stare  _ through _ her. "Leia," he said sternly, "you said the Force was a pushy bastard and was laughing at you."

"Yes. The Force and the Storm both."

"Has anyone taught you shielding?"

_ "Shielding?" _ Leia asked, confused, did he mean with riot gear?

He sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. "We're fixing that. Soon as we can safely hobble back to my house."

***

When the storm cleared two days later, Artoo found them in Ben’s house drinking tea and staring at each other. Lukka did  _ not _ , in fact, put trackers in all the things he handed Leia. He put trackers in  _ half _ of them.  _ Artoo _ put trackers in the rest.

He accidentally confessed to this when he discovered who Leia was with, cheering that he  _ knew _ if he tracked LA-A when she was having fun, he’d find OB-1 having fun, too. Threepio was rather distressed by all this, and also the sand in his joints. Which…was not news. Leia and Lukka, when he arrived much to Ben’s increasing headache, agreed to visit once a week while on planet until they got their shielding sorted enough to  _ not _ give Ben a headache just existing in the vicinity. 

Artoo invited himself along.

He’d found OB-1 and was  _ not _ going to misplace him again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _North Paonga Plains_  
>  The only maps I could find of Naboo were vague, and only the one lake and the swamps of the Gungans were named on it, so the plains to the north of that lake are named uncreatively after said lake, but with "North" attached.
> 
> _as he ran for the bare dirt of the town center, falling to the dirt to roll and writhe in agony._  
>  "Stop. Drop. And Roll." but 12 year old Leia doesn't have the context for what that actually looks like, so she parsed it as writhing.
> 
> _happily pointed out how bright the red was,_   
> Bright red burns mean very little of the flesh is truly damaged. Brown or black burns means it'll be a long time healing, if ever. Both Pooja and the unnamed man know this, but Leia isn't there in her medic/first aid lessons yet.
> 
> _She wanted to understand, but it seemed too big, too upsetting._  
>  AKA, Leia has set aside the Problem of Red before, and has now run out of "think abut it sometime later" time.
> 
> _It's his birthday today, or was,_  
>  They picked a day (not-quite at random, but close) to celebrate as bb!Ani's birthday since Amavikka very carefully do not keep exact count, as slavery rules include "children stay with the mother until the age of five" at which point thy can be sold separately. Those first five years can last a remarkably long time, dontcha know. It seems like forever, it seems like just yesterday...
> 
> Ben has ALL the Headaches. All of them.

**Author's Note:**

> Comments strongly encouraged. Conversation, debate, and shenanigans enjoyed. But complicated posts and replies to author replies, while encouraged, are not necessary.


End file.
